The Arrival

Today started out with hope and optimism.  The day was breaking beautifully as we awoke at 6:30am in preparation for our final leg to paradise.  We fueled up at the breakfast buffet and put the finishing touches on the suitcases.  Like children on Christmas morning, we rushed down to the lobby eager to begin.

The journey to the airport was the exact reverse of the night prior.  Car, then boat.  This time, though, it was in the daylight and we could see, for the first time, the beauty of the Maldives.  As the boat pushed off, you could see right through the cerulean, clear water directly to the bottom.  It looked as if the boat was floating on glass.  Between Male and the airport, the water was turned a deep, calm blue by the depth and struck a dramatic contrast with the shallower, clearer coastal area.  It was a perfect backdrop!

We arrived at the open-air, airport terminal and were greeted by the resort guide who stewarded us through the check-in process.  Said check-in process consisted of a makeshift desk with a guy and a van parked behind him.  The guy issued the ticket and loaded your bags onto the van.  Hum?  If we had not been accompanied by the resort rep, I may have been a tad more skeptical.  We were then given to a driver who loaded us into a very nice minivan and briefly shuttled us around the backside of the airport to the seaplane terminal.

Passed off again, we were now in the capable hands of another resort employee.  The resort smartly runs a private lounge in the terminal to ensure their guests are made comfortable throughout the journey.  It was smallish, but has a nice bathroom and the attendant brought you any non-alcoholic beverage you liked.  The lounge faced the harbor of seaplanes and one had the option of sitting outside on the veranda and watching their comings and goings. Finally, though, our plane was ready and we were beckoned to board. 

Olga waiting in the Resort's Airport Lounge

The plane was small and sat around 15 people.  It was slight cramped, relatively hot and really, really loud.  That said, the views were spectacular en route since it flew at a relatively low altitude.  You got a grand view of the entire archipelago ensemble.  We made one stop at a neighboring resort to offload some passengers and then finally, we touched down into the azure waters of Anantara Kihavah. 

Our Island

The plane pulled up to a floating platform roughly 200 yards offshore and unloaded the remaining few passengers.   We were promptly met by a boat and greeting by our personal concierge, Hushy (pronounced Who-Shi).  We boarded the boat and after cool, scented face towels and water, were treated to an overview of the resort.  I heard nothing.  I was completely memorized by the surroundings.  The view from the boat looked like something out of a Hollywood movie … a really good Hollywood movie.  The boat ride cleverly took us around ½ of the island just to get the full effect – They had me at hello.  We eventually pulled up to a long, stately, wooden pier and were guided off the boat.  We had, in fact, arrived!

The floating platform and the plane loading people on their way home

The boat coming to pick us up

Our Island as seen from the boat

We troddled down the gangway and on the sandy shores where Hushy drove us through a sandy network of narrow byways that stealthily cut through the lush jungle.  We emerged from the brush at the entry to the water villas.  The villas sit on an oval shaped dock-way that splits in the middle with villas on either side.  Hushy led us to ours, about half way down the right side.

First steps on the Island

Leaving the jungle and on to the dock

The villas

From the front, the villas look quite plain with darken wooden facets and an imposing double door, but once inside … Holy crap!  You enter into a large arched-ceiling foyer which, behind a beautifully crafted sideboard, contains your full stocked wine refrigerator, your regular mini-fridge and your cupboard of goodies – none of which we could afford.  It also had a coffee maker and an electric kettle for tea – which we could afford, because it was complimentary.    This area also served as your junction between the large bedroom and the enormous bathroom & changing areas. 

The entryway - to the left is the bathroom
Straight ahead the bedroom and ocean

Straight ahead through an arched doorway is the bedroom.  This is a huge room with a 20 foot cathedral ceiling and a king size bed right in the middle.  The bed is surrounded by other furniture, TV, desk, etc, but they are all done in the dark wood of the Southern Indian Ocean giving the room a particularly exotic feel.  There is also a comfy daybed flanked by stained glass windows in a bumpout just in case you wnt to take a nap inside. As hotel rooms go, it was splendid, but the bedroom, believe it or not, was not the real attraction.  What surrounded it really that made it spectacular.

Entering the bedroom and standing behind the bed 

Looking at the two sliding doors
Ocean in front and pool to the left

The pool from the bedroom
No sleepwalking here!

On the bed looking out at the sea
Note the giant bed-swing - great for napping!

On the left side of the room, through a pair of large, wooden sliding doors, was a private, infinity pool sparkling in the sunlight. The pool abutted the doorframe, so you were either in the room or in the pool (more on the pool later).  Facing forward, there were two more large, disappearing, sliding doors through which spilled forth a large veranda, complete with a huge bed-swing, table and chairs and three hammocks which hung out over the water.  This veranda then led to another veranda about 4 feet below which housed your lounge chairs and umbrella for sunbathing.  Behind the lounges was the aforementioned pool, but the level with the lounges was low enough as not to impede your view if you were floating in the pool.  To tie it all together, there, then were stairs the fed into the sea another 4 feet below.  The stairs ran to the lower veranda and then along the far side of the pool terminating at a glass door into the bathroom behind it all

The lower vernada

Looking up from the lower veranda

The bedroom and veranda from the pool

The second veranda in front of the pool

One of the three hammocks the jut out from the top veranda

The verandas from the pool

Ah, the bathroom!  Leaving the entry foyer to the left, you pass through a small arched hall with separate his & her dressing rooms on either side.   You enter the bathroom through a huge twin pocket door, arched ingress and step into a massive space with a 25 foot cathedral ceiling.  There is a lounging couch in the middle of the room with separate toilet and shower rooms at the back.  There are two separate vanities on either side of a large glass door that leads to a second shower … outside! But really, the outside shower is a side show compared to the tub.  Sunken into the floor, it is located directly in front of yet another wall of sliding glass doors that completely disappear giving the bather a full view over the pool and out into the sea.  The most amazing part is that the tub has a glass bottom, so you can see the ocean directly beneath you (I know, so many questions about seeing the other way).

Looking over the pool to the bathroom

The bathroom
Note the sunken tube right inside the door and the shower with a view on the right

The bathroom as entered from the foyer
Toilet on the left and shower on the right - The divot in the ceiling is a shower head

To the left are the vanities and outdoor shower
beneath the shower is the sea - note the glass panel on the floor 

The tub

The glass bottom of the tube
What you see there is the ocean bottom - what the fish see is your bottom!

The shower is also unique in that the rain showerhead is in the ceiling of the shower enclave… 15 feet above you and is fronted by a ginormous glass window, so you can continue to enjoy your views even whilst showering.  The toilet room next door also shares the same view thanks to a huge pass-through between the two.  The toilet also benefits from having a glass floor, so you can enjoy both views! 

Lastly, there is the pool that is tucked into the corner that the bedroom and bathroom create.  It is about 15 feet by 26 feet and about 3 feet deep.  On the backside, next to the bathroom and facing the ocean, there is an underwater bench equipped with soothing massage jets, so if sitting on your private lounge chair or on your bed-swing is not enough to take in the views, you can submerge yourself in your pool and enjoy a Jacuzzi.  It is serious overkill, but anything worth doing is worth doing in a pool with a Jacuzzi bench!

The pool - wedge in between the bathroom and bedroom
You can almost see the long bench in the back 

The pool looking forward

After being given the tour of the villa, Hushy did our paperwork and disappeared to allow us to relax and enjoy our surroundings.  We lounged, sat, and laid about for a short while and then decided to head down to the dive center to get all the paperwork ready for the week.  With this done, we grabbed lunch and retired to the villa for some afternoon swimming and more lounging.  We finally made it and it exceeded every expectation we had! 

That is, until the accident …